


Bright Lights & Bubblegum

by kaibasetos



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-14
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-20 10:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6002631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaibasetos/pseuds/kaibasetos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You told him I was your boyfriend?"</p><p>"I never said that."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bright Lights & Bubblegum

**Author's Note:**

> [[Valentine's Day Fic Bash 2016](http://kaibacorpking.tumblr.com/private/139289273480/tumblr_o2jex0gLDG1uy32l2)]
> 
> This was a fun one! This one was written for my partner Joey, with whom I had a conversation about an AU in which Jounouchi played for your typical American high school football team. I never shared it simply because it's an oddly specific AU, but I'm still very fond of it and in the spirit of the Fic Bash, I hope y'all enjoy!
> 
> Mild content warning for mentions of blood and injury!

The stadium lights are brilliant and blinding, a beacon in the night. The crowds’ cheers are a deafening roar. Kaiba feels more out of place than he ever has in the bleachers of the football game, absentmindedly yet self-consciously adjusting his tie. He tries to keep his eyes from wandering across the crowd, picking out boys in face paint and girls chewing bubblegum, everyone applauding and yelling. He feels so intensely disconnected from it all. He rubs his sweating palms against his slacks and focuses his attention on the field, where he can just make out Jounouchi, identified only by his name and the number 33 emblazoned across the back of his red jersey.

It’s the fourth quarter and the scores are tied. Kaiba knows enough about football to know that means that the pressure is on, bearing down particularly hard on the strong shoulders of their team’s star running back. He’s seen Jounouchi throw his hands up in exasperation more than once, take out his mouthguard to curse at referees and players on the opposing team, tackle with much more force than he is explicitly required to. He’s getting fired up and frustrated and Kaiba can see it, even innumerous rows away from the action. He shoots a glance at the people sharing his row of the bleachers and wonders if they can see it too.

Their offense runs a particularly risky play. Jounouchi is sprinting along the sideline with the ball when a member of the opposition makes what even Kaiba recognizes as an illegal move, slamming into Jounouchi helmet to helmet and sending him out of bounds. When he tumbles to the ground, he doesn’t move. Kaiba bolts straight up amidst the sea of flinching “ _ooh_ ”s that erupt from the crowd. The sudden chill in his bloodstream is painful enough to drown out the sound of the referee announcing the resulting penalty. The medical team is at Jounouchi’s side. He isn’t responding, and Kaiba takes the stairs down from the bleachers two at a time, his heartbeat keeping uneven pace with his steps.

He takes long, purposeful strides toward Jounouchi’s side of the field, his hands clenched bitterly hard and his eyes cast aslant at where the medical team forms a worried barrier. Jounouchi is hurt and he can’t focus on anything else, can’t feel anything else, can’t breathe anything else but that pain, uncertain and frightening. He rams his left shoulder into a security officer on his way onto the field and the officer grabs him at the elbow. Kaiba almost catches himself smashing a curled fist into an authority figure’s face to get to Jounouchi.

“Hey, whoa, kid. No one is allowed on the field.”

Kaiba turns to look the man directly in the eyes.

“Let me through.”

“No way,” the officer almost laughs, eyeing Kaiba up and down. “Shouldn’t you be studying for your business class instead of arguing with an officer of the law?”

Kaiba grits his teeth. His tone is low and menacing. “Let me onto the field. Right now.”

The officer looks unimpressed. If anything, the expression on his face is one of condescension. “I already told you, no one’s getting out there. Spectators aren’t allowed on the field. Who do you think you are, son?”

Vivid memories of being treated like a foolish child for the better part of his life collide with vivid images of Jounouchi’s body crumpling to the turf. Kaiba’s head is pounding. He yanks his arm out of the officer’s grasp and scowls at him, glancing over at the crowd on the sidelines and flexing his fingers to try to keep himself from using physical force. His words are more effective anyway. He was taught by the best, after all. “Who do I think I am? I _think_ I’m Kaiba Seto, the CEO of the most major corporation in this city,” he replies coldly, straightening his stature and squaring his shoulders.

The officer raises an eyebrow. “And?”

“And,” Kaiba continues, his hands trembling, his voice raising involuntarily, “my _boyfriend_ is the one who is on that field injured right now. If you don’t allow me through to see him, I will not only plant enough evidence and pull enough strings to have you fired from your miserable job, I will take special care to ascertain you never find another job in this city again.” He narrows his eyes. “Try me.”

The officer shares a glare with Kaiba, trying to read him. Finally he lets out a deep sigh, rolling his eyes. “Alright, fine. Come with me.”

Kaiba actually leads the way to the sidelines, all of him moving too quickly, tunnel vision slimmed down to nothing but Jounouchi. When he approaches the medical team looks up and shifts to allow him into their circle as if aware just judging by the look on his face that if they didn’t move, he would make them. He falls to his knees in the turf next to Jounouchi, who has definitely seen better days. Blood is smeared across his face from what looks to be a fractured nose and cracked lip, but his glazed, concussed eyes seem to brighten when he sees Kaiba. Relief floods Kaiba like a heavenly high. He’s _okay_.

“Kaiba,” Jounouchi says, his voice shaky and cracked. He’s smiling weakly and Kaiba reaches over to take his hand, lacing their fingers together. He’s never held Jounouchi’s hand before and right now it lights him up, makes him feel like the moon hanging overhead is shining through his chest. “I didn’t even know you were here. You don’t like watching the games.”

“I came for you,” Kaiba replies, and it’s so honest it makes his throat tighten. He grips Jounouchi’s hand like a lifeline because his tongue doesn’t know how to carry the weight of _I was so worried about you, I am so worried about you, I’m so glad you’re alright, I don’t know what I’d do with myself if you weren’t._  “You kept talking about how important it was. I wanted to support you.”

“Not to break up this touching moment,” one of the medical staff interrupts, her gaze directed at the security officer still hovering behind Kaiba, “but who’s this guy? He’s getting in our way. We need to get this young man to the hospital.”

The officer offers her a half-hearted shrug. “I don’t know. He’s this kid’s _very important_ boyfriend, apparently.”

“You told him I was your boyfriend?” Jounouchi asks, and his grin is so huge even the blood can’t mar it, the picture of genuine thrill. Kaiba tries to make up for the way his stomach twists fearfully with a scoff that comes out sounding more high-strung than sincerely offended. His composure, already fragile, snaps. He sounds borderline hysterical.

“I never said that. He must have thought it implied by the current situation.”

“No, you definitely said that,” the officer interjects slowly. “You said ‘my boyfriend’, verbatim, pal.”

Kaiba shoots him another brief glare over his shoulder, more like a deer in headlights than anything, but Jounouchi gently squeezes his hand. He looks so achingly pleased with Kaiba right now, almost proud of him. Kaiba’s breath is caught fighting somewhere in his lungs, his heart is in his throat, and mess be damned, he’d kiss Jounouchi right here if all of the eyes in the stadium weren’t presently focused on them. Hell, he’s tempted to do it anyway.

“Okay, seriously, we have to move him. We think he has a concussion and he needs to go to the hospital. So if you wouldn’t mind, you know, letting go of him,” the girl from the medical staff quips.

Kaiba hesitates, his fingers still laced with Jounouchi’s, but before he can make the decision Jounouchi makes it for him. He slips his hand out of Kaiba’s and sits up, wincing, wrapping his arms around Kaiba and burying his face in his shoulder. Kaiba freezes, uncertain of what to do with his hands, of what to say, of where to look. Jounouchi’s hair is against his neck and Jounouchi’s blood is probably on his shirt but he’s warm, so warm and so alive, and Kaiba has never felt moreso alive himself than he does right now. He never wants Jounouchi to let go.

“Don’t worry about it, Kaiba,” Jounouchi murmurs against him, then pulls back and shoots him another grin. “I’ll be back up and runnin’ before you know it. Just come meet them at the hospital, yeah? You can tell the nurses you’re my boyfriend, I’m sure they’ll be so charmed they’ll let you right in to see me.” He winks and Kaiba pinches the bridge of his nose hard between his index finger and his thumb, squinting his eyes shut. He’s never going to live that one down, but he reasons it probably doesn’t matter anymore.

“I’ll see you there,” he promises, his voice carefully leveled.

On the drive to the hospital, Kaiba thinks of bright lights and bubblegum. He thinks of Jounouchi’s hurt but singing body against his and the stains on his slacks from kneeling in the damp faux grass. He glances up at himself in the rearview mirror and almost smiles.

When he walks through the Emergency Room entrance doors with blood dried on the shoulder of his white button-up, his mouth can’t quite manage to handle the word _boyfriend_ again, but it can settle on _partner._  A less intimate parallel, but one that essentially broadcasts the same thing, the one thing Kaiba has always been too frightened to put a name to: _we are together_.


End file.
